Downfall
by Angel's Anthem
Summary: Having stolen the identity of a wealthy man, a Demon races against time to redeem himself in order to regain his honor and power. He must collect six souls, already owning five to his name. I fell for him that night, but never imagined I'd be chosen as his final victim. Unconsciously, he had become my poison, and I was dangerously addicted to him...


**Downfall: The Aristocrat's Photograph  
**

**WARNING: GRAPHIC DRESCRIPTIONS AND MILD LANGUAGE **

* * *

The niece of a prosperous Duke drew back the heavy, indigo curtains. Just beyond the silver-gilded railing, an assemblage of honorable Ladies and Lords whirled about in a robust promenade in the corridor below. As the lively tone faded into a more serene song, the young woman cursed at her falling strands of hair and brushed them away, letting them blithely fall along the span of her bare back. With a soft sigh, she smoothed her fingers across the glittering surface of the mask she held in the palms of her hands. Coiling the silky threads around her head, she fastened it into a rigid knot. It was time to make an appearance.

* * *

"Help! For the love of God, someone, please help me!" pleaded a man whose hands were bound with leather straps.

The middle-aged man was arrayed in a slick uniform; a black suit which smelled like pepermint. His pants resembled that of his jacket, both made of the most fashionable fabric in London, Victorian Era; 1823. His pallid sleeves were earlier starched, as well as his collar and ivory tie. His silk vest, also that of ivory, was buttoned up while his shoes remained finely polished. He possessed a silver pocket watch, revealing that he had inherited great wealth, but the crack etched within the glass revealed his debt to a particular Duke and Dutchess. Undoubtedly, he was perfect material for a banquer, however absent from the party and beguiled in a forsaken place.

The aristocrat twisted his wrists, scraping his tender flesh against the coarse bonds in the process. Before long, bleeding shreds of his skin began to peel off. To no avail, he remained strapped to a wooden post inside the hollow chamber. His eyes could not adjust to the darkness, but he smelled the stench of raw sewage. Faintly, he could also detect a dull echo from above; perhaps the uproar of the party he was scheduled to attend. Yes, he could hear the unmistakable voices of people! Unfortunately, he failed to remember how he came about to end up in such a place as the cellar of his hosts' mansion.

"Hello! Can anyone hear me!" The aristocrat projected his voice upward in hopes that he might gain one soul's attention.

_"Shut up, you fool,"_ hissed a disembodied voice. _"Only I can hear you."_

Startled, but momentarily relieved, the man hesitated, "Oh, thank God someone heard me. Good sir, would you mind untying me? I know how this must look, but I have no idea who could have carried out such a useless prank. I'm already late, and I need to be going."

_"Yes... Thank your God,"_ the voice mocked. _"While you're at it, thank Him for me, will you? Thank Him for giving me your body and the opportunities it bestows."_

The man nervously laughed, "I'm afraid I don't quite follow you, chap." Clearing his throat, he continued, "However, it's nothing a few drinks won't clear up. Now, please, untie me and be hasty about it."

_"I cannot do that." _

"Nonsense! Untie me and the first round's on me!"

_"I do not take orders from the likes of you. Who do you suppose put you there in the first place?" _

"What?"

The tone of the wealthy man's voice was barely audible, for it was little above a whisper. He had assumed that few frivolous teenagers had pulled one on him, but, now, he was beginning to doubt himself. A slideshow of scenarios reeled through his mind as he sat in the presence of a most terrifying character. Overwhelmed with fright, the man began to quiver. His throat began to sting while the breath in his lungs snagged inside his chest. He strained his eyes, once more, to peer through the shadows, pitching in all directions. Gradually, he began to detect small slivers of light, only a few yards away from him. They were thin, but bright enough to cast a glint on the lens of his glasses.

"Who are you?" the nobleman questioned, sniffing away the angst in his tone.

Amid the chilling echo of silence, the man heard a chain of bellowing laughter. The cackle continued, growing louder and closer by the second. Ignoring his dignity, the aristocrat cowered by the wooden column, waiting for his kidnapper to reveal himself. He began to shake with sweat while the inhuman giggles pressed further and more persistent. The unrivaled crook hacked once before subsiding his laughter.

_"I wish those were unnecessary, I really do." _The victim figured he suggested his bonds._ "But I hate it when my food squirms." _

Disgusted, the man scoffed, "Are you daft? What the bloody hell is wrong with you?"

_"Nothing. Nothing at all..." _

"What do you want from me?" the aristocrat was furious, tired with frustration, "If it's money you want, take my wallet. That is all I carry with me."

_"I don't want your human trivialitites,"_ the voice grumbled, _"I need something much more sustaining." _

"You better leave my family out of this," he threatened with gritted teeth.

_"Just you,"_ the kidnapper whispered, a grin spreading across his decaying lips, _"I just want you..." _

"This is inappropriate!" the aristocrat sneered, "I demand that you untie me at once! What is your name, boy?"

_"Boy!"_ the unseen intity tauntingly repeated, _"Let me assure you that I am no 'boy'. Allow me to ease your concern!" _

He was a crippled beast. The body belonging to the unidentified voice crept into the overhead slivers of light. Instantly, the aristocrat began to scream with horror. In mere seconds, his screams slurred into pathetic sobs. What the nobleman had assumed was a man, was no man at all. The humanoid creature was hunched over, his spine weaved into a painful arch. His skin was disintegrating, flaking off like scales on a mythical beast. His face and features sagged, while the purple veins in his eyes protruded from the inside of his eyelids. An ooze, horrifying with a filthy stench, was flowing from the crevices in the creature's joints. Patches of his flesh were green with decay; his entire embodiment resembling that of a corpse. The creature's hands were that of distorted claws, showered with puss-filled warts. What hair was left on the fiend's head was few, rank with the smell of sulfure. The nobleman gagged, still wailing in the dark. He jerked his eyes away from the beast when it flashed an amused smile, mentally feeding on the man's satisfying fear. The abomination had no lips, only a fine row of jagged teeth.

_"Oh, you poor little thing,"_ soothed its chilling voice. It began to trace its slimy fingers across the man's cheek bones. _"Don't cry..." _

"WHAT ARE YOU?!"

Without giving the man a response, the ghoul plucked a picture from the aristocrat's breast pocket. With a crooked grin, he cocked his head to the left, eyeing the figures in the photographed portrait. His victim proudly stood in the center of two sons. In the middle, however, sat a dainty woman, poised like the Queen of England with a side grin across her darling lips. Though she was of great beauty, she possessed no features related to the aristocrat, or his sons. An evil remark suddenly came to the creature, filling his hell-stricken mind with a new-found lust.

"I am you," the fiend kissed the woman in the photograph, "I will be soon, that is."

"NO! You stay away from my family! You can't have them!"

_"Fool!"_ howled the creature, "_I can have whatever I want!" _

Fastening his eyes shut in hopes to also disclose the foul breath omitting from the beast's mouth, the man shouted, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?"

The creature's laughter ensued, _"Caidred, at your service!"_

"What magic is this, then? What devil was twisted enough to allow you to live, you miserable basturd!"

_"The very Devil your priests warn you about. I'm a Demon," _it smirked,_ "The cruelest kind!"_

"That's absurd! You're insane! LET ME GO!" Furiously, the man shook his head as if he were trying to wake up from an incredible nightmare. "This is sick! This is a sick game!"

_"You are correct! 'Tis a very sick game, but one I'm increasingly good at. Now, if you don't mind, my lungs are beginning to turn into mush. I require yours."_

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Without another word, the Demon filled the cellar with his bellowing cackles. He sniffed the sweet flesh of the man's arm before embedding his teeth into the soft tissue. Pleasure taking its toll, the Demon tore a strip of the man's skin and chewed on its tender surface. He savored its taste before swallowing. Like a match against wood, a flame of hunger surged through the undying creature. The Demon, drenched in blood, was enveloped by this spark to devour more. The victim's shrieks of pain were forcibly faded out by the Demon as he gnawed at the muscle until coming clean to the bone. He licked his lips and continued to steal from his prey.

The more the Demon consumed, the more his strength returned. As his old and decaying body digested the consummation of entrails, it worked to repair itself; taking the image of the sacrifice with it. The victim's skin began to sprout across the Demon's new skeleton; bones thicker and muscles stronger. He grew taller, his spine regaining its natural shape and his legs becoming more stout. His hands were soft again, vacant of boils and sores. His bare scalp blossomed with a dense, ebondy sheen of hair. Finally, his face disposed of its sagging skin, replacing it with a darker such tone, smooth and irresistible.

All that was spared of the victim was a pair of hazel eyes, thrown lazily aside. The Demon had no use for them. They were defective anyway if the man had been required to carry lenses. Instead, he kept the eyes of his former victim; a pair of emerald optics. Satisfied, the Demon, having stolen a wealthy man's identity, ventured out of the cellar to join the banquet in hopes of wooing the woman in the aristocrat's photograph.

This was, indeed, a sick game the Demon was playing.

* * *

As the niece of the host and hostess, Naveen was peppered with various partners to share a dance or two with. Some she had accepted, while others she politely declined. Fanning herself, Naveen decided to take a break, fleeing to an isolated corner. Taking a deep breath, she gripped her blouse and twisted it, shrugging away the discomfort. Suddenly, she smelt the odd aroma of peppermint.

"Excuse me." Awed, Naveen stumbled, turning around as quickly as she could to meet her latest pursuant.

"May I help you?" she inquired, eyes widening to his increasingly handsome anatomy.

"Perhaps," the man smirked, "Would you honor me?" Naveen exchanged quick glances from his extended hand to his grinning expression. She flashed a smile before half-heartedly accepting.

A beautiful tongue soothed a lyrical tune while the masquerade endured. Immediately swept to the dance floor, Naveen pivoted her foot. She curved her hip to whirl about, mirroring his exact caper. With her leg brushing against his, they artistically collided into one another, wavering from left to right; her body cradled by his in a narrow spoon. His hands, concealed with squalid, white gloves, seized Naveen's in an impressively exhilarating manner; inelasti, yet flaccid. As if heedless minions, the couple surrendered to the music, allowing it to lure them down a rhythmical groove their anatomy could not forgo. The smooth tunes, accompanied with a soft swooning of choir voices made their muscles flexible. The Cello strung an abysmal cord that determined their pace.

With little to no acknowledgment of the other couples who danced to mimic their ploy, Naveen conceded to this stranger as he pushed her through another harmonious spin. Her skirt, its brim blemished with soot, was aspired by the thrust of wind as he bounced her back towards him. With her arms intertwined with his, wrapped tightly against her flush chest, she allowed her neck to repose against the surface of his collarbone. Her mysterious partner accepted this gesture, hugging his cheek against her own as they fluctuated with the cadence of the instrumental melody. The host's niece glared at his white gloves while they briskly danced across the small of her back, pulling her closer; tighter. He had somehow become her poison. As he sucked the life out of her conscious mind, she was taken by his irresistible smell and body. Losing her grip on reality, Naveen had but one thought:

_'Was it a sin to waltz with a stranger?' _

* * *

**NAME PRONUNCIATIONS: **

Caidred - _"K-eye-drid"_


End file.
